Hundreds of officers form guard of honour at tragic detective’s funeral
ONE of the country’s most experienced criminal investigators has been remembered as a man whose pursuit of the truth was both forensic and relentless.
Detective Superintendent Colm Fox, from Malahide in Dublin, was the lead detective overseeing the Regency Hotel murder probe.
He was discovered fatally injured in Ballymun Garda Station on Saturday.
Gardaí and the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission launched separate investigations, and the death is being treated as a personal tragedy. At his funeral mass in the Church of the Sacred Heart in Seabury, in Malahide, Assistant Commissioner Barry O’Brien said it was with a “total sense of disbelief and shock and devastation that all of us learned of the death of our dear friend and colleague”.
As a policeman, he stands out “among a very small group of individuals who stand head and shoulders above all others in the area of crime investigation,” he said.
“This is self-evident in the legacy of successful investigations conducted by Colm over the past 15 to 20 years, all of which are still very much in the public consciousness.”
Fr Sean Donohoe, who is also a brother of Det Supt Fox’s wife Edel, said the life and death of each of us has an influence on others.
“Colm always influenced for the good. He had an enormous influence on his neighbours and friends here in Seabury, and on his work colleagues, and also on the victims of crime he helped through his investigations.”
Before calling a minute’s silence in prayer, Fr Donohoe asked that mourners pray for family and gardaí.
After requiem mass, hundreds of gardaí formed a guard of honour as the hearse was driven to Dardistown Cemetery.